The hormones produced from the endocrine system come from a wide range of different places. Among those responsible for hormone production are the glands and a few organs as well. The glands that are involved are the pituitary, thyroid, thymus, parathyroid, and adrenal. The organs, which also play a vital part, are the pancreas, gonads, kidneys, heart, and parts of the digestive tract. All these different glands or organs work together in the production of certain hormones. Those produced in one location will almost always have an effect on many other areas of the body, not just the surrounding tissues.

An analogy that fits very well with the study of the endocrine system is that of a message in a bottle. We can think of th

The next chemical I will describe is bisphenol-A with its chemical structure:

globulin. This globulin molecule is the carrier protein for steroid sex hormones in the blood. The effects from this are evident. It can cause feminization of male's (wildlife) and cause male characteristics to develop in females.

Testosterone highly indicative of the structures of the other hormones that are not derived from cholesterol. The main point is that ring structures are highly conserved within a majority of the natural hormones within the body. This plays right in with the structures of the substances we suspect in endocrine disruption.

An example of dioxins and furans reacting with other chemicals would be their reaction with polychlorinated biphenyls. Both dioxins and furans are fairly reactive to begin with, but adding heat and PCB's can produce some fairly nasty mixtures. The substances formed in these reactions are polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF) and polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDD) respectively. The PCDF's and PCDD's that were formed in the reactions have been linked to a few very large disease outbreaks. One of the incidents occurred in Japan, while the other occurred in Taiwan. The people who were exposed to these chemicals experienced severe side effects that were also passed on to their young.

When the chemical agents bind to the receptor site/s they are able to effect growth, reproduction, development, behavior, among many other body functions. All the items listed in the preceding sentence are strongly related to hormone function. When the hormone molecules are functioning, as they should, they regulate all of the areas that were listed. It is the irregular levels of the endocrine disrupters that are causing abnormal endocrine functions to occur.

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, Taiwan Korea, Cholesterol Estradiol, PCDF's PCDD's, Dioxin Furan, Apopka Fl, endocrine disrupters, estrogenic effects, endocrine disrupting, endocrine disruption, endocrine system, endocrine disrupting chemicals, disrupting chemicals, natural hormones, chemical structure, chemical agents, dioxins furans, Florida Male, receptor site causes, function natural hormone, herbicides insecticides fungicides, chemicals endocrine disrupters,
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Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)